Labor day we took a trip to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. There we explored exhibits about the geological history of the region, walked through cactus gardens, and met javelinas, mountain lions, and bears (oh my!). The animals that live at the museum have been rehabilitated after traumatic encounters with humans and would be unable to live in the wild again. We rounded out our excursion with a picnic, testing out our new lunch boxes that we purchased for the week.
Tuesday, September 6th, with some trepidation, the four of us split for our longest time apart since our arrival in Tucson: our first days at work. I left at 8 am and took the 3 bus for 40 minutes to my placement at the Florence Project, Jessi took the van to her placement at Casa Alitas, Andrea also took the bus to Watershed Management Group, and Michaela walked across the parking lot to the church to work with Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery (virtually) and then had a second first day with Literacy Connects. I arrived at work and learned that I was one of several new hires at the Florence Project so I was not alone in my first day confusion.
The first day was both boring and overwhelming for me. Lots of time sitting at a desk and learning about the organization. The next two days continued to improve with more training, meeting new people, and learning more about my role for the year. The people that I've met have been friendly and I look forward to interacting with them more in person and online!
While the work week was only 3 days (we don't go to our positions on Fridays and we had Monday off because of Labor Day) it felt very long. This is the first time that I've had a full-time job and had to commute to work, quite different from walking across campus for class. While it's taking some getting used to, I've already begun to navigate around the city without my phone giving me step-by-step instructions, trying out different forms of public transportation (the bus and the tram), and learning new acronyms at work. That being said, I did leave work the first day thinking, "Wow, I just want to go home right now." And I did! We settled into our house cooking routine and relaxed on the couch watching TV and decompressing from our eventful days.
Thursday night we tried out a farmers' market for dinner but the restaurants around the area were a little out of our price range. After some Googling we found a little restaurant called Maico Mexican Restaurant. Those $8 burritos really hit the spot. This may be a place we visit a couple of times a month.
This weekend has been quiet and we witnessed our first rainfall yesterday! A good time for grocery shopping, making granola and bread, doing puzzles, and meeting neighbors. Overall, recovering from our first week and getting ready for our second week and learning more about our new normal.
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